I close my eyes and shake my head. I can feel my cheeks burning. “Isn’t it?” I say.
Tom steps forward to touch my arm but I jerk it away and shake my head incredulously at him. “Jesus Tom!” I say. “I mean, you don’t actually think that you can just waltz in here…” But my voice fades out as I realise that this is, strangely, a replay of my scene with Hugo. That’s exactly what I said to Hugo. Or is it just what I wanted to say to Hugo? What I should have said to Hugo. It’s a peculiar moment of confusion. I wonder if I’m not getting my anger mixed up.
Tom’s head is bowed, but he’s looking up at me. His face is pale and the effect of his dark pupils, the whites of his eyes, actually makes him look quite dangerous. “I don’t know what I can say,” he says. “I don’t know what to do to…”
“Of course you don’t,” I say bitterly. “Jenny’s not here.” I wince at the meanness of my words, but it’s too late. It’s said.
Tom’s eyes are watering, and his voice cracks slightly as he says, “Jenny said you…”
I nod and blink slowly, my suspicions confirmed. “What?” I whistle. “What did she say?”
Tom shrugs and shakes his head.
I nod him on. “Go on Tom, I’m dying to know,” I say.
Tom shakes his head and takes a step back towards the door. “She said you still have feelings for me,” he says, looking me in the eye.
I turn away and look towards the window where Paloma is sitting on a cushion – asleep and unaware of the drama unfolding. I look at a book on the sideboard – anything to avoid looking at Tom.
He snorts sadly. “But you look more like you hate me,” he says with difficulty.
I shake my head slowly and chew my lip.
“I don’t know what to say Mark,” Tom says. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
I shake my head again. “You’re pathetic Tom. You know that?”
Tom’s half closes his eyes. It’s as if I have slapped his face.
“I mean,” I continue, tapping the side of my head. “Is anyone actually in there?”
Tom stares at his feet and moves his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“What I want Tom… What I wanted was for you to actually get off your fucking arse and be… bothered,” I say. “I wanted you to explain yourself, to apologise, and to make some fucking effort to make things right.”
Tom frowns at me and swallows. “But I…” he says.
“None of this is from you,” I say, waving my hand at the flowers, the card, the bag. “None of this is even your fucking idea.”
Tom shakes his head. His eyes are streaming and his face is swelling.
“It’s just sad,” I say.
Tom reaches for his bag. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought…”
“Did you?” I say. “Did you actually think at all?”
Tom shakes his head and turns towards the door. “I should go,” he says.
I open my mouth to say, “Go!” but I stop myself.
Tom peeps at me through the gap in the door as he pulls it closed behind him.
“And tell Jenny I don’t like fucking roses,” I say.
I rub my eyes and pace madly around the room. I slap the wall – it hurts my hand. I stomp to the bathroom and wash my face.
I sit on the sofa and think, “How the fuck did we get here?” How did the dream of reunion with Tom end up such a disaster? How did we get so… so stuck?
Of course it’s Jenny’s fault for intervening, for lying to me, for turning our lives into her very own scripted melodrama.
I suck my front teeth. My anger – suddenly focused against Jenny – crescendos. “How dare she!” I think.
I stand and swiping my keys from the sideboard I head upstairs. I couldn’t give a fuck if Sarah’s asleep. Jenny is gong to find out what’s on my mind.
It’s Tom who opens the door. Obvious of course, but it truly hadn’t crossed my mind. “He doesn’t even have the balls to fuck off properly,” I think.
Tom looks very pink. Everything about him has turned a deep hue of pink.
“I just wanted to say…” Tom starts to say, but I interrupt him.
“I didn’t come to see you,” I say turning away.
“She’s out,” Tom says behind me. “So you’ll have to listen to me.”
I snort derisively and glare back at him, suddenly hesitant to truly walk away. This feels like a last chance reprieve, and something about the spunk in his voice – finally! – makes me pause.
“Can you think of anything to say?” I say, meanly. “Without Jenny?”
Tom shakes his head. “That’s horrible,” Tom whispers. “You’re just being horrible.”
Devoid of a comeback, I shrug.
“You think you’re so clever,” Tom says. “So witty… But you’re just fucking everything…”
I wave a hand in front of Tom’s face. “Hey, Tom!” I say. “Hello? I’m not the one who fucked everything up.”
Tom nods. “I know,” he says, his tone carefully controlled. “I did.”
I sigh furiously.
“But you are fucking it up now,” he says. “I’m trying to…”
I shake my head. “There’s nothing left to fuck up,” I say.
Tom reaches out. His hand hovers an inch away from my arm. He looks into my eyes and leans forward. “I think there is,” he says. “I love you.”
I shake my head and sigh in despair.
“But I don’t know…” Tom’s voice wobbles. “I don’t know what to do,” he says.
My anger is subsiding and the taut, shiny feeling is being replaced with a swollen, marshmallow puffiness. My head feels huge and vague. I slide to crouching position and lean against the door-jamb.
“Tell me how to fix it,” Tom says. “Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”
“But you did nothing Tom,” I say. “I mean why does someone have to tell you what to do Tom? Why should I have to tell you?”
“Because I’m not a fucking mind reader,” Tom says. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know if there was anything I could do.”
“And you know,” I say, laughing sourly. “Anything would have done.”
Tom touches my arm, and I let his hand remain. He crouches down so that he’s in my line of sight and looks into my eyes again.
“I know how bad I let you down,” he says. “I really do. That’s why I didn’t think there was a way, that’s why I couldn’t see how… But I called Jenny – just to find out how you were, and when she said…”
“You called her?” I say.
Tom blinks quizzically. “Yeah,” he says. “and she told me what you said. That’s the only reason I came.” He moves his hand up to my shoulder. “I’ll do anything babe,” he says. “But you have to tell me what.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “But why?” I say. “Why do I?”
Tom takes a deep breath and leans towards me. His forehead is almost touching mine. “Because you’re the one who has to forgive,” he says. “You’re the only one who knows what it will take… What it will take for you to forgive me.”
I rub my forehead and look around the landing, suddenly aware that we are having this most private of discussions in the most public of spaces.
“Come inside,” Tom says.
I sit numbly on Jenny’s sofa until he returns with hankies and glasses of water. Tom pulls up the pouf and we sit in silence staring at our feet. It’s as if we’re both embarrassed to go any further.
“I’ve really missed you,” I mumble. Letting the words out is a major victory over my ego.
Tom nods. “It’s been hellish,” he says. “I’ve been so depressed.”
“But you think I can tell you how…” I say shaking my head. “But even I don’t know how to forgive you.”
“I know,” Tom says quietly.
“And it’s not so much what happened. It’s not so much you and Dante,” I say.
Tom frowns at me.
“I
t’s this…” I say, gesturing with the palm of my hand. “It’s these four months. Four months Tom.”
He nods again. “I know,” he says.
“And the fact that I just don’t understand why…”
“I know,” Tom says quietly.
“I don’t know how to trust you anymore,” I say.
“I know, but maybe with time…” Tom says. I raise an eyebrow and he continues, “Maybe, if you gave me another chance, maybe then, you know, after a while you’d see…”
I sit back and pinch my nose, which has started to run.
“One day you might look back and see that I never did let you down again,” Tom says. “I mean, I wouldn’t you know,” he says. “You know that at least, right?”
I shrug and drop my hand to my lap. “Do I?” I say.
Tom sighs and looks away. “No,” he says. “Of course you don’t.”
He stands and turns his back to me and moves to the window. He suddenly looks like a beaten man – like someone who is in the throws of giving in to the inevitable end of this relationship.
All the failures of the past wash over me. A huge wave of fatigue envelops me. And it’s suddenly not what I want. It’s not what I want at all.
I force myself to stand and move to his side. I look out at the street below. “Maybe we could try,” I say. It almost kills me to say it. “Maybe we could see what happens,” I add.
Tom turns to face me and bites his lip. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows; his eyes are tearing. “That would be good,” he says. “I’d really like that.”
*
It’s funny really – well, almost funny. The things in life that you think you will never have, the things you spend years wanting and working towards and then suddenly forget about. And then there are the things you spend years wanting, and when you get them they’re just not what you thought they were.
As the plane descends through the layer of cloud towards Gatwick airport, I can’t help but wonder if I really want Tom at all.
It’s strange to say, but it seems I’ve spent a lot of energy worrying about completely the wrong thing. I thought the issue would be whether I could learn to forgive Tom, whether I could learn to love Tom in the same old way. It turns out that the issue is whether I can continue to love a Tom who bears so little resemblance to the Tom I met, or at least the Tom I thought I met, that he might as well not be the same person at all.
The plane hits the tarmac with an unnerving bash, and I wonder, so to speak, which Tom is the real one. The bubbly, cheeky, do anything for a laugh Tom I used to date, or the sullen, untidy, big-spending hard working, guy I’m on my way to spend Christmas with.
I fight my way through the last minute travellers swarming around the airport, and onto the Brighton-bound train. It’s full of office workers knocking off early, heading home with alcohol in their blood and gifts in their colourful paper bags. Momentarily my mood lifts. After all, who can resist Christmas?
But when I let myself into Tom’s basement flat, my heart starts to sink. The curtains are still drawn and the place smells musty. There’s even a vague twang of something sweet, something a little too sweet. That rotten-fruit-in-dustbin smell of decay.
I swipe open the curtains and fiddle with the catch and force open the big sash window. Cold air blasts in. I turn back to face the room expecting the worst. But it’s even worse than last time.
My eyes scan the room, slowly cataloguing the desolation. On top of the TV sits a dinner plate caked with dried tomato sauce. In front of the TV stands a large unopened cardboard box. The writing says it’s a flat screen LCD TV. In front of that sits a pair of shoes, dirty socks sprout from the tops. The glass coffee table – hard to keep clean at the best of times – looks like another used dinner plate.
I shake my head and move towards the sofa. A dirty work-shirt is draped over one armrest, a still-knotted tie lies on one of the seat-cushions. Another dried up dinner plate is in the process of sliding down the side between the armrest and the seat.
Every surface is covered in a thick layer of dust. I go to run my finger along the mantelpiece, and notice a squiggling line cutting through the dust indicating that Tom has already done so.
He’s never liked housework – that I know – but this is getting out of hand.
I shuck my aviator jacket and swipe the dirty clothes from around the room and head through to the kitchen.
Tom’s laundry basket is overflowing, so I turn to the washing machine hoping to use it as secondary storage, but it too is full, not only with clothes but with water too. I ball up the clothes and throw them into the corner and, with a disgusted shake of my head, I return to the lounge for a dirty-plate collection.
The kitchen sink is stacked high with dirty dishes, so I lift a pile clear and dump them on a cardboard pizza carton on the table. Half a pizza is still in the box. “For fuck’s sake Tom!” I say to no one in particular.
I roll my sleeves thinking that this isn’t how I had imagined spending Christmas Eve. “Still,” I figure. “Season of goodwill and all that…”
I take a deep breath and – imagining Tom’s face when he sees the soon-to-be-realised transformation – I do a 360 degree scan of the room and set to work.
By 7 PM when I hear his key in the lock, the place is looking almost normal. I lean out of the kitchen so that I can see his reaction.
“Hello!” he says, smiling and rolling his eyes. “Sorry I’m so late but I’ve had a bitch of a day.”
He’s wearing one of his new suits – a silky grey one, and a deep blue shirt with a spread collar. He looks fabulously sharp; it’s a bizarre contrast with his living space.
He pulls off his jacket and throws it onto the sofa and then notices the changes. “God you cleaned!” he says, walking towards me. “You didn’t have to do that,” he adds softly.
I pull a face. “Well, really, I kind of did,” I tell him. “It was pretty disgusting.”
Tom frowns at me as if I’m telling fibs. “It was a bit messy I guess,” he says. “I’ve been so busy… Anyway, cheers.”
I’d expected more, but I instruct myself to remain calm. No point getting upset about housework on Christmas Eve. “I couldn’t get the washing machine to work,” I say.
Tom wrinkles his nose and nods. “I know,” he says. “It’s broken.” He steps forward and holding my biceps, he pecks me on the lips. “Hello!” he says.
I slide a hand down to his arse and we kiss. The feel of his buttocks through the silky fabric gives me the beginnings of an erection, but Tom pulls away.
“Let me change,” he says, pushing towards the bedroom, “and we can go eat.”
I frown. “Out?” I say. “I was thinking…”
“Yeah,” Tom interrupts. “I booked a table at that new Japanese place,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to go there for ages.”
I sigh. I had been thinking more of a cosy night in around the fire with a bottle of wine. “I thought we could stay in – I’ve been travelling all day,” I say. “And cleaning.”
Tom appears in the doorway to the bedroom, one leg in a pair of crumpled jeans. “There’s no food in anyway,” he says. “And that place is supposed to be the bees knees.”
He pulls what looks like a brand new Surfin’ Life sweatshirt over his head. It’s fluorescent orange with a huge Surfin’ Life logo across the front. As he hops across the kitchen towards me, he pulls on a pair of trainers.
“Okay?” he says, pointing his palms at me. I’m apparently supposed to approve his outfit. I push my lips out. He looks like some adolescent Californian.
“I liked the suit better,” I say plaintively. “And what’s with the big logo? I thought you hated logos.”
Tom shrugs. “You’re just a suit slut,” he says, adding, “Anyway, I like the logo… It’s kind of cool… Don’t you think?”
I shrug and nod my head. “I guess,” I say. Remembering suddenly how much I dislike Japanese food, I add, “Hey Tom, isn’t that Japanese
place like, really expensive? Because I’m not really that…”
Tom has pulled on a coat and is heading for the door. He pauses and looks back at me. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s reserved. And we’re late. Call it your Christmas present.”
I open my mouth to make a final attempt at nudging the evening in a different direction, but Tom – unlike his washing machine – is on spin cycle. There’s no stopping him now.
“Come on!” he says, opening the front door. “We’ll be late.”
I sigh and grab my jacket. As I walk past him he pats my behind. “Hey, you get to go in the new car too,” he says. “I forgot you haven’t seen it yet.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them again I’m out in the street and I’m grinning.
“Wow, yeah!” I say with forced enthusiasm. “Which one is it?”
*
I wiggle Sarah up and down upon my knee.
“This one’s very calm,” I say.
Jenny nods. “Yeah, maybe she missed you,” she says. “It’s been kind of calm around here.”
“Did you have a nice Christmas though?” I ask.
Jenny shrugs. “I guess so,” she says. “The weather was amazing, so we went for lots of walks. I’m still trying to walk off all the weight I put on. Oh, I changed my French teacher. That’s been fun.”
“Fun?”
Jenny raises an eyebrow. “Well, I just lied to the old one and told her I was moving back to England. But the new one’s really nice. We’ve been meeting up and having coffee and stuff. It’s much more conversational French.”
“I thought you were doing okay really,” I say. “Every time I hear you speak you seem to be getting by just fine.”
Jenny nods. “Yeah, it was just all a bit formal. And dull. And slow. If I want to think about staying then I need to get better. And fast,” she says. “So I can think about finding a job and investigate childcare and everything.”
“Well, I hope you do,” I say. “I kind of like having you around.”
“So you’re not moving to Brighton?” Jenny asks. “I was kind of thinking that if you had a good time with Tom… over Christmas…”
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